Comics piracy crackdown

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

I was arguing that Kenny believes that using the word theft might help to change that cavalier attitude toward copyright infringement.

I'm pretty sure there were people calling it theft 10-13 years ago too, Harlan Ellilson certainly was. Didn't seem to make much difference. I don't think what you call it has anything to do with the reasons (the majority of) people don't care.

The publishers ignored the demand for digital content that long that alternative distribution networks grew around it. They essentially (with a few notable exceptions) turned a blind eye to it, which gave a lot of people the green light. See the Dan Didio comment I posted a few days ago for an example.

Now that they want to sell digital content themselves, they need some way to move people away from what they have got used to for the last 10 years or so. Calling them thieves isn't likely to do that. Nor is providing a product that is inferior to what people are currently getting for free.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I'm pretty sure there were people calling it theft 10-13 years ago too, Harlan Ellilson certainly was.....

OMG! I must come up with a new word now!

[Iphinome]

Try infringement, no one wants to agree with Harlan Ellilson. Not even after a blow to the head.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Just out of interest though, what is it that people object to about copyright infringement?

I suppose it just doesn't sound sinister enough. You know, like a boring terminus technicus instead of a crime the common man can relate to.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Authors still get paid from libraries, each library may even buy numerous copies and in many places authors even get a payment for each time someone borrows their books.

Never heard about that, please elaborate. "Many places"? I don't think so.

Libraries are society's way of helping the poor afford books.

Yes, you might think so. The funny thing is the majority of library patrons are actually quite well off, studies have shown time and again; statistically significantly so, in fact.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by stustaff

Theft for me means taking something from someone and the act of theft means it denies the owner access thats how i know its theft or has been stolen.

Rest assured that's the commonly accepted (not to mention legal) definition.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Never heard about that, please elaborate. "Many places"? I don''t think so.

Some other forum members explained that this is how it works in Great Britain. I believe (but am not sure) that they use the same system in quite a few countries in Europe.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

You were the one who complained of lack of sharpness in expression.

I did, but I was arguing in favor of using the correct expression. That does not mean calling a spade a shovel simple because you like the word better, for one reason or another.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Some other forum members explained that this is how it works in Great Britain.

Gonna look into it.

I believe (but am not sure) that they use the same system in quite a few countries in Europe.

No, I don't believe that at all. Never heard about it (and I hold a degree from a continental law school, just for the record).

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Never heard about that, please elaborate. "Many places"? I don't think so.

http://archive.ifla.org/III/clm/p1/P...ckgr.htm#Where

Though its a strange system i don't completely understand the justification for, perhaps if the publisher were providing the books to the libraries and asking for payment on a per loan basis instead of a per book one but asking to be paid for both...

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Some other forum members explained that this is how it works in Great Britain.

They get about 6p each time a book is loaned, up to a maximum of about £6,000 per year. It is paid to writers (not publishers) once a year as long as they have earned more than £1.

[rogue_librarian]

Looks like Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden and UK do, in fact, make payments on a "payment per loan" basis according to how often an author's work is borrowed. Interesting.

[junkyardwillie]

I've never been on htmlcomics but I've seen other sites like it and I did not like the reading experience. each comic page was a new page so you were constantly loading pages, it was quite annoying.

I think by far Marvel has it right with their web application. Pay one flat fee and get access to their entire database. It still needs some work because it doesn't have everything on it and their equivalent iPad app does not connect you to your Marvel account but its a step in the right direction. At $60 for access to a full database of comics with a great app player its almost crazy not to use it just for the ease of use, having to hunt down comics online is way too time consuming right now, I think people would be willing to pay.

If comic book companies don't quickly move into a format similar to Marvel or collaborate with Marvel they will end up like Mp3s and now eBooks where people will find better ways to aggregate the information and the time investment in getting "free" comics will go down significantly.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by kennyc

The reason you are not getting it is that you are limiting you definition of what theft is.

Or understanding the definition.

You are limiting it to only a physical item. I think it applies to much beyond that, theft of service, theft of intellectual PROPERTY, theft of ideas/concepts etc.

Shrug. You are wrong, going by the standard definitions of the word.
You are free to use any word to mean anything you say, but don't expect other people to understand you, or to suddenly start using your definition just because you want them to.

theft: "the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny."

Theft is when one person takes the property of another person without their permission, such that that person no longer has ownership of it. That is what the word means. Copyright infringement means you have taken a copy of the property of another person without their permission, but they still have ownership of their original.

Two things can both be wrong without being the same thing.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Two things can both be wrong without being the same thing.

In the end, that is all that matters. Both are wrong, and copyright violation should not be belittled as a "non-crime" that doesn't hurt anybody.